The United States Patent and Trademark Office appreciates your input with respect to the disclaimers and warngs as to the validity or accuracy of information contained on web sites that feature content submitted by members of the public rather than professionals with expertise in particular subject areas.

You request the USPTO to establish a policy that would prohibit the use and citation of such websites by examining attorneys.It is the position of the USPTO that questions of descriptiveness, misdescriptiveness, geographic descriptiveness, scandalousness and other grounds for refusal under the Trademark Act are to be determined on the totaity of the evidence of record. Should such evidence include entres from websites that may contain inaccuracies or unverifiable content, it must be considered in context and evaluated on a case by case basis. . . .

The USPTO continues to support its policy relating to any evidence acquiredfrom the Internet, as outlned in the Trademark Manual of Examing Procedure (TMEP) Section 710.01(b)(Articles downoaded from the Internet are admissible asevidence of inormation available to the general public, and of the way in which a term is being used by the public. However, the weight given to this evidence must be carefully evaluated, because the source is often uknown. See In re Total Quality Group Inc., 51 USPQ2d 1474, 1475-76 (TTAB 1999); Raccioppi v. Apogee Inc., 47 USPQ2d 1368, 1370-71 (TAB 1998)).